According to his LinkedIn profile, Van Hampton isMidwest Bureau Chief, Equipment & Materials Editor and ENR Insider Editor for Engineering News Record in Chicago. His specialties include cars, heavy machinery, trucks, and tools. It's about time the NYT had an expert on tools.

Of such a starry find, a reader reportedly derives an image that is overly self-referential, positively timeless, and somewhat ornate. This magesterial catch is a most perfect match to his/her latest piece on NYU's curricular revision.

There's a glaring error in the new Brooks Barnes piece http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/06/movies/06box.html

He says that Iron Man 2 was a Disney production and it was in fact a Paramount film. So he makes these two erroneous statements:

"Disney had a similar summer, with mistakes like “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and “Step Up 3D” dragging down profit from blockbusters like “Toy Story 3” and “Iron Man 2.”

and

"Paramount Pictures was the most successful by volume; for the summer its releases racked up over $770 million at the domestic box office. But the result is misleading because Paramount owned only two of its wide releases, “The Last Airbender” and “Dinner for Schmucks.” The others — “Shrek Forever After,” for instance — were distributed for a fee."

"Iron Man 2" was produced by Marvel Entertainment, which is owned by Disney. Paramount released the film but only for a small percentage of the total revenue. Barnes should have credited Paramount and there will need to be a correction, but he wasn't completely wrong.

This doesn't alter the fact that he writes like a high school newspaper reporter.

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